{"id":5548,"date":"2026-05-07T15:37:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T15:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/?p=5548"},"modified":"2026-05-12T08:37:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T08:37:39","slug":"highest-electricity-prices-in-europe-due-to-government-idleness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/highest-electricity-prices-in-europe-due-to-government-idleness\/","title":{"rendered":"Highest electricity prices in Europe \u2018due to government idleness\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"Sinn F\u00e9in TD for Dublin South West Se\u00e1n Crowe has said that the reason Ireland has the highest energy prices in Europe is down to the government\u2019s refusal to properly invest in renewable energy and their unwillingness to say no to data centres that are leeching on the national grid. <br \/><br \/>Teachta Crowe said:<br \/><br \/>\u201cIrish workers and families are tired of being ripped off when it comes to energy prices. Electricity in Ireland is some 40% above the EU average. <br \/><br \/>\u201cThe basic necessity of lighting and heating your home is becoming simply unaffordable for many people with over 300,000 people in arrears on their electricity bills. That figure has jumped by 23% since last year and is only going to get worse. <br \/><br \/>\u201cData centres are piling pressure onto the grid but aren\u2019t paying their fair share for what they\u2019re using. Their electricity rate is half of what homeowners pay, and they contribute hardly anything at all for upkeep of the grid. There must be a moratorium on data centres until we have a resilient energy supply. <br \/><br \/>\u201cFar from taking action to help workers and families, this government withdrew energy credits, taking away the only lifeline many households had. That is why we now need an emergency budget.<br \/><br \/>\u201cElectricity credits and other temporary measures only tell half the story though. In order to end Ireland\u2019s energy rip-off for good, the government must adopt Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s proposals to reform Ireland\u2019s energy market.<br \/><br \/>\u201cThe only hope of achieving Irish energy independence is through our incredible renewables potential, yet Fianna F\u00e1il and Fine Gael have totally failed to seize the opportunity. Ireland has still yet to break ground on any offshore wind project.<br \/><br \/>\u201cIreland must end our overdependence on imported fossil fuels and achieve energy security in renewables that protects Irish workers and families from spiralling energy costs because of external shocks such as the war in Ukraine and against Iran.\u201d","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sinn F\u00e9in TD for Dublin South West Se\u00e1n Crowe has said that the reason Ireland has the highest energy prices in Europe is down to the government\u2019s refusal to properly invest in renewable energy and their unwillingness to say no to data centres that are leeching on the national grid. Teachta Crowe said: \u201cIrish workers [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5548"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5549,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5548\/revisions\/5549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}